He nods, and, after a longer pause: "Need anything?"

"Nope."

He stands. "I'll start working on training, then," and heads out.

There are no incidents during the day.

He does manage to increase his speed using the technique Kakashi recommended. He still can't really steer while using it, though.

He pulls Naruto aside, tells him Chihiro works for the Hokage's teammate, and she's clearly sad and needs to learn the meaning of friendship.

After breakfast the next morning, which Kakashi is well enough to sit up for, he pulls Sasuke aside. Kakashi pricks the ball of his thumb with a knife, then slaps the ground. Thin, spidery writing spirals out, then disappears in a puff of smoke. In its place is a pile of dogs of various breeds.

"Everyone, this is Sasuke. Sasuke, everyone. They're going to help with your training."

He nods solemnly at them. "I'm working on speed and reaction times." He assumes the dogs are going to be chasing or attacking him. Maybe he can work on using the short-range shift mid-melee...

"Nice to meet you, kid," a small pug perched atop a rather large bulldog. "Name's Pakkun. Here, shake." He holds out a paw.

That is a very skeptical look on his face. Still, he'll take the paw.

The pads are incredibly soft and delicate. Being able to touch them is an exquisite sensory experience.

"Right then," says Pakkun, taking his paw back. "Let's head out and you can show us what we're working with."

Weird.

He nods, and leads them to a stretch of beach. He's usually been shooting out over the water; it's a good way to also practice his water walking. "How do you want me to demonstrate?"

"Run from here to there," Pakkun instructs, gesturing. "And then we'll go from there."

He uses the chakra boost, doesn't use his spells yet, but he's pretty fast even baseline, so.

"Again. But this time go past there and there." Pakkun indicates a route that has him take a zig-zag shape.

He's better at turning than he was yesterday, which means he skids a bit.

Pakkun has some tips to help him. Once Sugira's practiced with that a few times, Pakkun has the other dogs line up at intervals along the route. Sugira will run it, and the dogs may or may not try to knock him down.

Interesting. He can see how this will help.

He's not perfect at dodging the attempts, but he gets notably better as they work.

The dogs increase the difficulty as he learns, making him dodge more than one at the same time or attacking more often if he's not going fast enough.

That helps.

He'll incorporate the speed spell once has dodging without it up to 'decent', then once the two he memorized today both wear off (they don't stack; he's just increasing his effective time), he asks them to charge him while he practices the short-range teleport with little notice.

He gets knocked down a lot practicing that, but he can only do the actual teleport six times a day, so, he'll still get through it quickly.

"Neat trick, kid," Pakkun says. "Anything else you got?"

"Not movement related. Though using the techniques while moving or being attacked is hard..." He supposes he can practice combat casting with cantrips.

The pack can help with that.

He's practiced it with Naruto before. Still, he clearly needs work - and if he gets disrupted at exactly the wrong moment the spells are prone to doing something he didn't intend. Usually some variation on 'exploding.'

He'll go in for meals, and keep an eye on his team at those points. At dinner he tries to talk to Chihiro more - Naruto's already gotten the 'she's not a foreign spy, please befriend her' talk.

Chihiro is not exactly unfriendly, but she doesn't seem to get how a conversation is supposed to work.

That makes two of them.

Whereas Naruto mostly settles for chattering at her with the occasional interspersed question, Sugira's quieter, more deliberate, and starts out just asking her simpler questions about what she's seen in the area, if there's anything she likes about training, is Naruto annoying her...

He does after a bit point out she can ask him questions back, and that normally in conversation return questions are kind of related to earlier questions or even just 'what about you.' "Sometimes," he says after a pause, "People ask a question because they want you to ask them it. They'll sometimes sound... indirectly frustrated, if that's what they're doing." He thinks; the intricacies of social interaction are hard.